An intimate profession is put on ice

Brian McCormic was in the middle of smoking a chicken outdoors when I called him on a weekday afternoon. He took a long polite pause in the conversation for a garbage truck to go by. Not much is being rushed these days. McCormic’s friends have joked that it took a pandemic for him to finally take a break. “Owning a business, it’s a lot of work, and you don’t have a lot of time to do things that you would want to do,” he said. He’s been playing with his four-year-old son and getting back into cooking.

While he appreciates the extra time, it comes at a steep price. McCormic owns Redbird Electric Tattooing in Springfield. The 41-year-old business owner and tattoo artist, who is originally from Massachusetts, works with three other artists at the shop. As independent contractors, they’re on their own when it comes to things like filing for unemployment, something McCormic has been able to do with success. When it comes to applying for other assistance, he’s “going to wait and see” how the next couple months play out. Waiting to see is about all those in the tattoo industry can do when it comes to long-term planning right now.

McCormic said he started his own business out of a motivation to set the standards of the shop he worked in. He didn’t want to fulfill any seedy tattoo shop stereotypes. “Our number one thing is people’s health and safety,” said McCormic. “We can’t tattoo if people are getting sick.” He and his staff, the independent tattooers, collectively decided to call it quits before the stay-at-home order went into effect on March 21. Even under the best sanitation standards, getting in someone’s personal space is a part of the job. “It’s just too close,” he said.

Edinburg resident Kevin Veara is a wildlife expert, visual artist, tattoo artist and shop owner who lives along the Sangamon River on seven acres of wilderness, which he is in the process of restoring. It’s a decent enough place to be in the middle of a pandemic. He said he plans to “move forward” through the unknown.

“The people I owe money to are just going to have to frickin’ deal with it I guess,” he said.

Veara has owned Black Moon Tattoos on the corner of Edwards Street and MacArthur for nearly three decades. He’s worked with his bank to defer mortgage payments and he’s holding out hope about getting back to work. It’ll happen. But he said, “people are going to be in the hole when they come out of this. I’m not just all of a sudden going to be busy.” He anticipates it taking several months for work to get back to normal after his shop is reopened.

Veara is taking it in stride. He has invasive species to remove from his property, after all. “I have a lot of irons in the fire.” One of which had been an art exhibition at Lincoln Land Community College. Artist Amy Denny and he had a show titled “Flora & Fauna” scheduled for March 18-April 11. It was unlucky timing. But he still has painting and nature.

Tattoo artist Lorin Devine landed in her hometown of Jacksonville when the stay-athome order took effect and decided to stay with family for a while. She had been traveling the country extensively with her partner, another tattooer, working at various shops as visiting artists. They were all set to go to South Africa for a convention scheduled during the last week of March. She didn’t feel it was safe to go for a variety of reasons, including travel restrictions. She also didn’t want to potentially spread the virus. “We felt like it was socially irresponsible,” she said.

Devine recently moved to an apartment in Portland, Oregon, that she had decided to rent long before the spread of the new coronavirus in the U.S. She had also planned to be working there, but of course, that’s on hold. As an independent contractor that puts her in a precarious spot. “We did have a little money saved up for emergencies,” she said. But she hadn’t budgeted for a pandemic. Devine said she spent some time resting and “dealing with everything that was happening emotionally.” And then she got back to work. There are other mediums she can express herself with. She’s made t-shirts, tote bags, prints and is also offering custom artwork. She’s just about to ship out some of her first merchandise orders. “I am 100% responsible for my success or failure. There’s no shop owner I can blame,” she said. “It’s just up to me.”

You can contact Rachel Otwell at [email protected].